01Gallium's melting point is 29.8 °C; it liquefies sitting in a warm hand.
02A few grams of gallium smeared on an aluminium beam will cause structural failure within hours.
03Gallium is banned from commercial aircraft cabins by FAA regulation for exactly this reason.
gnostek1 / 5Coat of arms of the Indies Company, with the reclining figure representing the Mississippi River taken from Law's Compagnie d'Occident , and the motto Florebo quocumque ferar taken from Louis XIV's East India Company
01John Law killed Edward Wilson in a 1694 London duel before fleeing to France to reinvent its economy.
02The Mississippi Company's shares rose 1,900% in 18 months before collapsing entirely in 1720.
03The crash was so severe France avoided paper money for nearly a century afterward.
gnostek1 / 58
01Approximately 70,000 of the 120,000 interned were U.S.-born citizens with full constitutional rights.
02The government classified internees as enemy aliens despite two-thirds holding American citizenship.
03Draft notices were delivered inside the camps; refusal meant federal prosecution for draft evasion.
gnostek1 / 4
01Grandin's curved chute designs, built around a cow's field of vision, are used in roughly 50% of U.S. cattle facilities.
02She earned her PhD in animal science from the University of Illinois in 1989 after her professors doubted her methods.
03Her 2010 HBO biopic won five Emmy Awards — she attended the ceremony and met Claire Danes, who played her.
gnostek1 / 10
01Antony left 19 legions stranded on the Greek coast when he abandoned his fleet to chase Cleopatra.
02Cleopatra's treasure ship — carrying the war chest for the entire eastern campaign — was on those 60 fleeing vessels.
03Octavian accepted Antony's surrendering legions, then used their manpower to become Augustus Caesar.
gnostek1 / 20
01His Cyrus Cylinder, 539 BC, is the oldest known declaration of religious and ethnic tolerance by a ruler.
02Queen Tomyris of the Massagetae allegedly beheaded Cyrus and submerged his head in a skin of blood.
03He freed the Babylonian Jewish exile — ~40,000 people — and funded the rebuilding of the Jerusalem Temple.
gnostek1 / 3Radium painters working in a factory
01Workers were told radium was safe; they painted it on their nails and teeth for fun after shifts.
02Grace Fryer's jaw had to be removed in pieces — bone had turned to soft, glowing pulp.
03The 1928 lawsuit by five 'Radium Girls' directly shaped the first U.S. occupational disease labor laws.
gnostek1 / 6
01Macías banned fishing boats and private radios, sealing 300,000 people inside his personal terror state.
02He declared himself 'God' and had churches display the slogan: 'There is no God other than Macías.'
03An estimated 80,000 people were killed during his eleven-year rule — roughly a quarter of the population.
gnostek1 / 16
01Freud's 1884 paper 'Über Coca' celebrated cocaine as a cure for morphine addiction; he prescribed it directly to patients.
02His colleague Ernst von Fleischl-Marxow, given cocaine by Freud to treat morphine dependence, died in 1891 of cocaine toxicity.
03Freud's biographer Ernest Jones downplayed the cocaine episode for decades; the full record was not examined until the 1970s.